By Shaun Proulx

ecently GGT columnist Ryan Farrell pointed out to me a truism about the Canadian Idol craze that has swept Canada: unlike the American version, it’s impossible to watch our Idol and rip a single would-be to shreds; these kids are Canadian talent and Canada is in love. More Canadians are watching the show than have ever watched playoff hockey, and by the time you read this, Canadian Idol will probably have taken top spot as our country’s most-watched series ever. Indeed almost 2.5 million Canadians cast votes for their idol at the end of August.

Front-row centre each show is singer-songwriter Sass Jordan. One of four industry judges, the Juno-award winning British-born, Montreal-bred Jordan has done what the Idol contestants are so far only dreaming of. Running her own career for two decades, her worldwide CD sales have topped one million, she has toured the globe and collaborated with artists like Carlos Santana, Aerosmith and Bryan Adams, and won Billboard’s Top Female Rock Vocalist award in 1992 for her album Racine. Her songs have been featured on U.S. television shows such as Melrose Place, Party Of Five and Baywatch and her duet with Joe Cocker was on the monster-selling soundtrack to The Bodyguard. Her career has also expanded into acting (‘I’m so shitty at it but I really love it’), with a guest role on NBC’s Sisters, onstage in The Vagina Monologues and as Janis Joplin in the hit off-Broadway production of Love, Janis. Her latest CD, a best-of collection, has just been released and she was recently squeezed into the July SARS-Relief concert that the Rolling Stones headlined.

I sat down last month with the high-energy and gregarious Jordan as she polished off lunch in her dressing room at the John Basset Theatre where Canadian Idol airs live twice a week. (‘Are you allergic to nuts? Because my lunch has nuts in it. You’re not? Good. I’m allergic to chicks with lots of makeup and big hair. Wait! That’s me!’) We talked about celebrating Canadian talent, not being the rock chick people thinks she is, what makes an artist relevant, and about being asked to be Van Halen’s lead singer.

So I’m a little addicted to Canadian Idol and when I watch you I often wonder what must go through your mind. Because if any artist has truly fought it out in the trenches it’s you, yet here you are watching kids being made into ‘successes’ just like that.
Here’s the thing. To me that’s not necessarily success. It could be here today, gone later today – which is generally the way these things pan out. Except if you are Madonna.
You’ve said before you’d hate to be her.
Madonna? No! I can’t think of anything more insane or intensely awful. I can’t be bothered with fame. It’s fickle, it’s stupid and really, honestly? (Laughing.) I know I talk like a truck driver, but there’s something really vulgar and low-class about fame.
So what do you think as you sit there each week watching these kids pursuing it?
(Laughing.) I think: what the hell are you doing! Just kidding. You can’t write that because it doesn’t read well – you have to be here to see I’m only kidding. Seriously though, I have to come up with a response after the kids perform immediately. And don’t forget there are a lot of little kids watching. There are parents. Zack can get away with saying exactly what he thinks. I am not him.
Nope, you read nice.
Nice? Oy.
In the most positive sense of the word.
But I’m supposed to be this rock chick, which is the most hilarious dichotomy. (Laughing.) I’m so not! What is a rock chick? I’m not trying to be high class, but you have a prime time TV show that is the most watched show in the country ever – no fucking way I’m going to tell someone that they suck – because they don’t. They are trying to pursue their dreams and I appreciate that. I’m gonna go for the constructive, positive end of things because that’s my nature. I wasn’t hired to do that, but that’s the honest truth. If I was going to say something negative I’d wait and say it in private.
The timing of Canadian Idol is excellent. There’s rejuvenated patriotism felt now in this country – this is a great time to celebrate Canadian talent so well.
We’re doing it so much better than you-know-where. It’s still fromage, but it’s Camembert. Every now and then there’s a cringe side, but that’s okay.
Do you think we need to ramp up the celebrity system here in Canada?
So badly, yes, we do. So bad. We desperately do. I’m new to the television side of the business but everyone I’ve been talking to says the same thing. We have no celebrity system because we have no forum. We have no way of doing it. We have no People, no US. Quebec does it though. It has all these weekly papers that focus on their television stars, their music stars … in one province. And can I tell you that a French vedette (star) can sell a platinum fucking record in Quebec alone and the rest of us will never have heard of them. And to have a platinum record in Canada? Anywhere at this point, actually, because no body buys records anymore at this exact moment in time. We’ve got to start a star system in Canada.
You said once ‘I find that pop music is dishonest generally, misleading, not very much fun, and heavily calculating.’ What do you say to the Canadian Idol kids who are going to get caught in the void between pop music and marketing?
For one to exist you kind of need the other. You have this piece of art and its not affecting anyone because no one can see it or hear it.
So then what did you tell yourself when your label turned down that rock album you submitted and told you to make a pop album instead?
How do you know all this shit?
I know my shit.
You fucking know way too much! When that happened I realized I wasn’t big enough to fight them. There was no way. So I decided to roll with it and look at it as a challenge as opposed to an insult or an offence. And you know what? It (Hot Gossip) is a great album. Some of my best work is on there.
Which would you choose if you started over - the Idol route or slugging it out in the clubs for years?
If I was starting now I wouldn’t do this at all. Nope. Because right now the most important thing for me is to be doing something uplifting every day. I don’t know if the music industry, where it is now, would do that. I don’t care if I’m a farmer, as long as it’s uplifting to me and those around me and that we enjoy ourselves and have fun and appreciate each other and make a difference. (Laughing.) And I know I sound like fucking Polyanna!
Sass, you’re a rock star for the new millennium is all.
(Laughs.) It’s the God’s honest truth! It’s exactly how I feel. That’s the fucking point.
Tell me your side of the whole Van Halen thing.
What do you think happened?
During your long stint in L.A. you would jam with Van Halen and then there was news that they wanted you to be the lead singer but you turned them down.
That’s the story but the truth is I was just hanging out with them for a month. And I discovered at the end of it that they had been thinking of me – but they never said a word. It was just Ed and Al (Van Halen) in the Hollywood Hills. I only sang a couple of times over some tracks they did. I never told a soul about it but somebody did and it spread like wildfire. And I asked Al – who is still a good friend - what was going on, and he’s like: ‘Blow it out of proportion! Do whatever you want. This is what its all about.’ But really – can you imagine me singing ‘Hot For Teacher’?
No. I read an article questioning Madonna’s relevance after the disappointing North American reaction to American Life, and I also read that for you Idol is a way to ‘rekindle your career to its former early 1990’s peak’. Why are performers judged like this? Another artist’s work, like a painter’s, reflects who they are and where they are at a point in time, and I may not like that last painting but I don’t question the artist’s entire RELEVANCE just because she’s producing work from a different place than before.
I don’t need to say anything! You just said it. Put that in your article. Perfect. Fucken’ brilliant. You’re absolutely right. When you talk about how many people like something versus how many didn’t – half the time it’s all marketing. People are told what to like or not like. In the industry a singer’s work is ‘yesterday’, ‘five minutes ago’, ‘so September 10th’, you know what I mean? Radio is in the business of selling commercial spots; they’re not in the business of music. Television is in the business of selling commercial spots; they aren’t in art. Music is about selling units of CDs. Whatever is the easiest and requires the least imagination and least work is what they are going to go for. And fuck, if I were in their shoes I’d probably be doing the same thing. But – as an artist - how do you make money to live on? But you are so right: we need to re-think how we judge an artist’s relevance.
You looked like you had fun at the SARS-relief concert.
That was so fun. Completely having fun. I was like (whining), ‘Just thirteen minutes?’ We did three full songs and part of one at the beginning. Not that everyone’s gonna remember later. This was the Stone’s show. And AC/DC’s. And it was so fun to see everyone involved when they pulled it all off. People worked hard to do that.
You recently played Janis Joplin off-Broadway in ‘Love Janis’. Wasn’t that supposed to come to Toronto this fall?
I’m not doing it for one reason: it is way too much work. It was really good when I did it in New York. I wasn’t doing anything else, the timing was perfect and it was an amazing challenge. And I can say I’ve done it, I pulled it off and managed to do it. But it was hard as hell. A really tough show. But it means they have to find the right kind of person to play Janis Joplin, and that person has to be able to sing it properly. I can think of some singers, but then they don’t look right. So I’m not sure about what will happen to the show.
Congratulations on the new ‘Best Of’ CD. What kind of pride of accomplishment does that make you feel? Because once upon a time the concept of a ‘Best Of’ release must have seemed a long way away.
Yeah, it did. But I knew it was gonna happen. And that it’s happening now with everything that is going on is just perfect. But it’s not about the ‘Best Of’ - I just like doing anything entertaining. I’m going to continue making records, but you never know. It’s all commerce, baby. Commerce and politics. So we’ll see. But listen, Shaun. What are we doing – are we gonna do something about our star system, or what?
 
 
 

 

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